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Despite being based on science, software development is full of bs, opinions and lacks measurable metrics. How "clean" this code is? In numbers between 0 and 1
by oleg_antonyan 4y ago
Despite being based on science, software development is full of bs, opinions and lacks measurable metrics. How "clean" this code is? In numbers between 0 and 1 for example. What's the metric there? Does using polymorphism automatically make your code clean? We cannot reliably reason about even single responsibility b/c there's no real measure how to count responsibilities of a function. In such la-la-land some desperately seek any formal measure, and there's one - performance - you can actually put a number on a piece of code. But you cannot do this for code "cleanliness". So some people prefer to ignore unmensurable trait and replace it with measurable
- pnt12 4y agoJust because something is hard to measure, doesn't mean it's not important to do - I think there's even a fallacy for that? I think it's also important to separate computer science from software engineering. Algorithms and data structures can be reasoned about mathematically, but what about agile VS waterfall or functional VS oop? Maybe software engineering relates more to philosophy than math. There are theories and some are more sound than others, but there is no objective truth. Most of us agree that it's important for code to be readable, but we still don't have the answer for what's the best readable code. Even first principle such as DRY are challenged, eg by WET. I recall vaguely that there was a situation where there were two schools of thought with different approaches. One was about hacking away things, the other about having correct programs. Maybe Berkeley vs MIT? Such different opinions at the basic level of a discipline are more likely in philosophy than math, I think.
- fartsucker69 4y agoWho told you software dev is based on science? It's clearly based on toilet plumbing.